Price Tag on Stress !

According to statistics, about 75% of today’s society has stress-related illnesses. Heart problems, ulcers, and an array of nerve problems are the leading products of stress. We have a wide range of mental illnesses that are the product of stress. Then you have divorces from couples not being able to cope with stress. Then, last but by far not the least, are the deaths by suicide and physical illnesses from stress.

People look for the “Quick Cure” for stress from many different types of doctors. The #1 so-called treatment for stress is, you guessed it, DRUGS. The #2 treatment of stress is therapy. Each treatment requires, you guessed it again, a doctor. These treatments keep a person’s stress somewhat manageable but do not cure the person. Of course, there are numerous people that find their own way to get relief from stress without a doctor, they self medicate. This just adds another problem to the equation, ADDICTION. Whether alcohol or illegal drugs, self-medication is definitely not the answer to stress. Alcohol and illegal drugs is a dead end street!

Let’s put a dollar estimate on stress in the United States.
There are roughly 150,000,000 adults in the U.S.
75% of 150,000,000 adults = 112,500,000 adults.
We’ll say a doctor visit (co-pay) = $50.00 x 4 visits a year = $200.00.
Monthly prescriptions = $50.00 x 12 months = $600.00
We’ll say ½ of the people use prescriptions & the other ½ use therapy.
56,250,000 use prescriptions & 56,250,000 use therapy
Therapy is much more expensive. We’ll say $100.00 an hour.
People go to a therapist we’ll say 1 time a week.
56,250,000 x $200.00 = 11.25 BILLION DOLLARS for DR. visits
56,250,000 x $600.00 = 33.75 BILLION DOLLARS for prescriptions
Don’t forget GASOLINE to & from Doctor’s office and drugstore.
Average auto we’ll say gets 20 miles per gallon
Gas on average is $2.90 a gallon for Regular
Average trip we’ll say is 20 miles round trip (for ease of figuring)
56,250,000 x 4 trips a year x $2.90 a trip = 225 MILLION
56,250,000 x $100.00 (Therapist) x 4 (Month) x 12 months =
270 BILLION DOLLARS
Don’t forget gas! (We’ll use same figures only 10 miles a trip)
56,250,000 x 4 trips a month x 12 months x $1.45 a trip =
3.915 BILLION DOLLARS

That comes to a grand total of $319 BILLION DOLLARS each year!

Those estimated billions of dollars is what these people pay out of their pockets after they get paid from their jobs to deal with stress. Those dollar amounts, I’m sure, are grossly underestimated. I am not even going to try to figure the costs of alcohol & illegal drugs & the costs that go along with them. There are still the costs of hospitals, funerals (deaths from stress-related illnesses), & gas to go to each and every incident. Just from these underestimated figures, you are looking at over 500 BILLION dollars that, we, the American Public are spending each year to cover up & treat stress. Doctors, pharmaceutical companies, funeral homes, and OIL companies are getting filthy rich off of our slow demise. That is outrageous!

Let’s consider something else. What is the one thing that nearly 99% of today’s stress boils down to? MONEY!! Instead of making more money to combat stress, we spend our hard-earned money to cover it up, medicate, or deal with stress. So, we have to work more to get more money to spend more money on dealing with our stress. The more we work the less time we have to spend with our loved ones and taking care of ourselves. In turn, we get even more stressed. So, we have to spend more money on doctors & more medication & more gas for to and from each visit and so on and so on and so on. This sounds like an ongoing, never-ending, downward spiraling cycle with only our early and painful death at the end. We are going about this all wrong!

I know that money isn’t everything; you can’t take it with you when you die, and money most certainly doesn’t make your personal problems disappear. Money does help take care of the things we need in order to make our everyday lives more pleasant and less stressful.

I don’t care who you are or what you do in life; everyone has a hobby or pastime that they are passionate about. Working so much, we all forget about the things that we love to some extent or another. Without love or passion our lives become empty and that opens the door for anger, frustration, and stress. We lose that sparkle in our eye. Without our unique sparkle, our daily routine gets harder & harder to go through. We work hard with the purpose in mind to make life better for our loved-ones and ourselves and to help grow our hobbies & pastimes into something more passionate. With the work / stress cycle growing more & more, we forget about our true selves and what makes life worth living.

How can we break this vicious cycle? How do we alter it or at least slow it down in order for us to break free from stress? There is an answer! Let me ask you this final “Food for Thought” question. Instead of working hard to make more money to make us feel better, why don’t we hardly work at something we love to allow us love life. In other words we take our hobbies, pastimes, or passions and make them work for us. The passionate work idea will take us out of the vicious work / stress cycle all together. The parts of our lives that we worked ourselves away from would return to make us happy and whole once again. “WORK what we LOVE & LOVE what we WORK”
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